1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an electronic device such as a copying machine and a multifunction printer.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2009-115751, filed May 12, 2009, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
All patents, patent applications, patent publications, scientific articles, and the like, which will hereinafter be cited or identified in the present application, will hereby be incorporated by reference in their entirety in order to describe more fully the state of the art to which the present invention pertains.
In recent years, an image forming device such as a copying machine or a multifunction printer has been designed to incorporate the functionality of multiple devices so as to increase the value of the image forming device. An image forming device has been developed that can attach to and release from a storage medium and can transmit various data with the attached storage medium. The storage medium is, for example, a USB (Universal Serial Bus) memory and an SD (Secure Digital) card. Specifically, the image forming device can print an electronic file such as an image file or a document file stored in the storage medium. Also, the image forming device can read out a document image to generate the image file by a scanning function of the image forming device and make the generated image file stored in the storage medium.
The image forming device described above can cause leakage of classified information to a third party which should be prohibited from access due to an illegal use of the storage medium. For example, the storage medium that stores such classified information can be connected to the image forming device and the content of the classified information can be printed or copied.
A technique has been developed that prevents the same storage medium from being used with a plurality of information processing devices and prevents the illegal use of a software, the leakage of the classified information, and a manipulation of the classified information. Specific information is stored beforehand in the storage medium or a ROM in the information processing device. When the storage medium is accessed for the first time, the specific information is written into an SRAM in the information processing device or a specific area of the storage medium. When the storage medium is accessed for the second time or more, it is confirmed whether the specific information of the storage medium is identical to the specific information of the information processing device. If the specific information of the storage medium is not identical to the specific information of the information processing device, accessing the storage medium is prohibited.
Accordingly, the usage of the storage medium is limited to the specific information processing device, which is useful from the viewpoint of preventing leakage of classified information. However, the storage medium is widely prevalent, and it is inconvenient for a user if the usage of the storage medium is limited to the specific information processing device. The limitation of the usage of the storage medium sacrifices its usability.
As long as the storage medium is used in the specific information processing device that is permitted to use the storage medium, there is no restriction on using functions of the information processing device. All functions of the information processing device can be used. Therefore, the classified information stored in the information processing device can be copied to the storage medium and taken out, which is a problem in terms of security.